It may be chilly across the country, but the temperature is not stopping Affiliates from offering great programming in February!

NATIONWIDE
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer, 12 Affiliates will join the National Museum of American History to hold a National Youth Summit, linking high school students across the U.S. in an engaging program on the history and legacy of the 1964 youth-led effort for voting rights and education, 2.5.

But it’s warm at these Affiliates! While you’re on winter break, check out the Smithsonian in your neighborhood:

The Smithsonian Community Coral Reef is on view at the Putnam Museum in Davenport, Iowa. The coral reef, composed of thousands of crocheted natural forms, creates a version of the Great Barrier Reef with loopy “kelps,” fringed “anemones,” crenellated “sea slugs,” and curlicue “corals.” On loan from the National Museum of Natural History.

Photo credit: Putnam Museum

Imagine you too are standing on a sun-dappled lawn picking wildflowers just like the figure in Dear Fay, one of several painted ceramic sculptures on loan to the Springfield Museum of Art in Springfield, Ohio, for their exhibition Jack Earl: A Modern Master- A Retrospective. On loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, through January 6, 2013.

Photo credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum

Native Words, Native Warriors tells the remarkable story of Indian soldiers from more than a dozen tribes who used their Native languages in the service of the U.S. military. On view at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, through March 2013. Organized for travel by the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service.

Courtesy U.S. Marine Corps

Sick of dreary white, winter days? Head to the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, Florida, for Vibrant Color: Vintage Celebrity Portraits from the Harry Warnecke Studio, a collection of color photographs of celebrities who rose to fame at a time when color photography was in its infancy. Organized by the National Portrait Gallery, the exhibition is on view until January 12, 2013.

While you’re in Florida, stop by the Frost Art Museumin Miami. On view until January 13, 2013 is Reflections Across Time: Seminole Portraits, a collaboration with fellow Affiliate Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum in Clewiston, Florida. Showing more than 150 years of portraits of Seminole leaders and tribal members, the exhibition features works of art from the National Museum of the American Indian, National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Photo credit: Frost Art Museum

In 1898, New York photographer Gertrude Käsebier watched the grand parade of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, on its way to Madison Square Garden. Inspired by what she saw, she photographed the Lakota (Sioux) travelling with the show in her 5th Ave studio. The result was a set of prints that are among the most compelling of Käsebier’s celebrated body of work. See Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington, through February 9, 2013. On loan from the National Museum of American History and includes artifacts from fellow Affiliate, Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.

Photo credit: Dean Davis Photography

Mittens, boots, puffy jacket and scarf may work in our winter weather, but imagine what astronauts had to prepare for when venturing into space! Suited for Space, an exhibition from the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service and the National Air and Space Museum, explores the evolution of spacesuit development from the first quarter of the 20th century until the dawn of the shuttle era. On view at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts, until March 3, 2013.

The Orange County Regional History Center (Orlando, Florida) received $5,000 to fund honoraria, travel, materials and marketing for three programs related to the themes of Beyond Baseball: The Life of Roberto Clemente.

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture (Baltimore, Maryland) received $3,310 to fund a panel, “Clemente in Context/Clemente en Contexto,” to provide museum visitors with some historical and cultural context about Afro-Latino populations in the Caribbean and in the United States. All programming relate to the themes of Beyond Baseball: The Life of Roberto Clemente and IndiVisible: African-Natives Lives in the Americas.

Chabot Space and Science Center (Oakland, California) received $200,000 to fund the Redwoods overnight environmental education center from the Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council which promotes programs and projects to bring young people in touch with the environment.

The Center for Jewish History (New York, New York), announce the expansion of its international fellowship program to include senior scholars, early career scholars and emerging artists and writers through a new five-year, $750,000 grant from The Vivian G. Prins Foundation. The grant will support fellowships for those who seek permanent teaching and research positions in North America.

Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) received a $5 million gift from the estate of the late William S. Dietrich II to turn a vacant building into an artifacts storage facility and conservation center. The Center also received a $2 million grant from UPMC to support educational programs and operations at the museum, where the library and archives will be renamed for Thomas and Katherine Detre.
Three Affiliates received Art Works grant awards from the National Endowment for the Arts:

Michigan State University Museum (East Lansing, Michigan) will receive a $40,000 grant to support the 2012 Great Lakes Folk Festival. In collaboration with the City of East Lansing, the university will produce a festival that showcases the traditional music, dance, foodways, and other cultural expressions of the nation’s Upper Midwest using an innovative approach, highlighting the cultural sustainability and adaptive reuse (recycling) inherent in traditional culture in conjunction with modern technology (a solar powered stage).

Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art (Biloxi, Mississippi) will receive $34,000 to support the exhibition, George Edgar Ohr: Apostle of Individuality. Designed to be installed in the Knight Gallery, the exhibition will include works by Mississippi ceramic artist George Ohr.

Whatcom Museum (Bellingham, Washington) will receive $34,000 to support the exhibition, Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art, 1775-2012. The exhibition will examine the artistic legacy of the planet’s frozen frontiers — glaciers, icebergs, and fields of ice– now jeopardized by climate change through the presentation of 75 works.

Science Museum Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) received a $1 million donation from Love’s Travel Stops to help kick off a capital campaign and $30 million renovation for the museum entrance and the addition of a permanent exhibit aimed at introducing young children to science.

Putnam Museum and IMAX Theatre (Davenport, Iowa) received $5,000 award from the Community Foundation of the Great River Bend to support the Putnam Power Mission video production.

The Coca-Cola Foundation awarded $50,000 to the North Carolina Museum of History (Raleigh, North Carolina) for the development and implementation of the initiative “Educational Outreach Programs for North Carolina Students.”

Putnam Museum of History and Natural Science (Davenport, IA)Smithsonian Community Coral Reef to live on in Davenport, Iowa…READ MORE

Rubin Museum of Art (New York, NY)It is a rare and wonderful day when The Observer can share not one but two news items from the sometimes-sleepy world of Tibetan art…READ MORE

With the support of a three-year, $270,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, Dr. David Jackson—the world’s foremost scholar of Tibetan Buddhist painting and a consulting curator for the Rubin Museum—will publish a new series of exhibition catalogues on Tibetan thangka paintings drawn primarily from the museum’s collection…READ MORE

Poverty Point State Historic Site (Baton Rouge, LA)Louisiana is working with the federal government to put the Poverty Point State Historic Site in northeast Louisiana on the World Heritage Site list…READ MORE

Prehistoric earthworks of Poverty Point

The prehistoric earthworks of Poverty Point in Louisiana and a collection of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings across the United States will be nominated by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for the U.N. World Heritage List…READ MORE

HistoryMiami (Miami, FL)One of Miami-Dade County’s oldest cultural institutions, has been accepted as a Smithsonian Affiliate…READ MORE

HistoryMiami Becomes an Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, Claudine Brown, Smithsonian Institution’s Assistant Secretary for Education and Access, to present HistoryMiami with Certificate of Affiliation…READ MORE

Mark the occasion as HistoryMiami becomes a Smithsonian Affiliate…READ MORE

Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture (Spokane, WA)Forrest B. Rodgers has been appointed the new executive director of the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture…READ MORE

Senator John Heinz History Center (Pittsburgh, PA)History center helps antique owners put a price on the past…READ MORE

Civil War 150th Anniversary:

National Civil War Museum (Harrisburg, PA)Without stars or bars, blue and gray flags dot the entrance to the National Civil War Museum – each representing a soldier killed in a battle the Confederates called Manassas and the North called Bull Run…READ MORE

To mark the 150th anniversary of the battle of Bull Run — the first major battle of the Civil War — The National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg set out blue and gray flags to honor all those soldiers killed in action…READ MORE

Greensboro Historical Museum (Greensboro, NC)Combining state-of-the-art 3-D technology with American history, the Greensboro Historical Museum will offer a special program of some 170 images of President Lincoln and the Civil War era…READ MORE

Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN)The magic of technology combines with the authenticity of characters in an outdoor historical setting to provide a truly unique experience…READ MORE

Smithsonian Affiliations Reciprocal Membership Program

Here’s a great deal you may already have access to: Paying for membership to one museum can actually mean free entry into several museums across the country…READ MORE

In these times of economic challenges, it’s nice to see some bright spots!

Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences (Peoria, Illinois) has been awarded a $10,000 Arts Education Invitational Grants Initiative grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to digitize the Picture Person Program, an art appreciation outreach program in which parent volunteers borrow art kits from the Museum and present them in K-6 classrooms monthly throughout the school year.

The PNC Foundation announced$3 million in grants to four of Chicago’s premier institutions including the Adler Planetarium, to enhance science education for underserved students in preschool programs operated by Chicago Public Schools and the Big Shoulders Fund.

The Putnam Museum and IMAX Theatre (Davenport, Iowa) won RK Dixon’s Make My Nonprofit Run Better contest and a $20,000 grand prize of an office technology makeover.